


patterns and constellations

by insistentbass



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-10
Updated: 2012-05-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 13:45:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insistentbass/pseuds/insistentbass





	patterns and constellations

Sherlock thinks, (85% hypothetical probability), that he could stay here forever -

he could sit and fester inside his palace of rooms, his corridors and secret closets. They are all packed tight, swelling with fractured thoughts and ghosts of memories; aching, pulsating, constantly changing and rearranging, morphing into new patterns and constellations.

And what _burns_ him the most, now, is his lack of direction. Sherlock's maps and labels have been singed at the edges, the paper curled and withered, leaving him with nothing. Sometimes - when the light is dim and his skin prickles - _sometimes_ , he can get lost.  


Sherlock can mislay himself in strands of latte brown hair, the deep crease of denim jeans, the thick weave of Arran wool against thin cotton. Everything is transient and slow and slipping through his fingers - he trembles through the draws and cupboards and locked boxes of his mind, he stumbles and falls right past important molecules of data. Instead his concentration is drawn to hands, to tendons and a stubbled jaw line (wondering what John's scar would taste like beneath his aching tongue). Gravity pulls him by the chest into a cavern of treacle darkness and want and he _drowns_ in it, too thick and cumbersome to swim through.

It takes days, most times a week, for Sherlock to resurface.

  
So he smokes, because the heavy cloud of nicotine quells the drumming in the recesses of his mind. He drags in again and again and loses himself, instead, into the pull of a tormented half sleep.

When the dull throb of a too-early sun wakes him, Sherlock almost gives in. It is these few hours of the morning that he misses the most; the domesticity of tea and toast being shoved under his nose, the comforting rustle of John’s newspapers and his bare toes curling into the carpet, details. It's all very tragic and sentimental, and he knows in these moments that Moriarty has _won_ , even with his brains staining a hospital roof. 

Each missing detail of the life he has left behind is like losing a bone, losing a limb, losing an organ - ripped from the safeguard of his ribs. Mistakes are becoming more frequent and octaves higher on the danger scale; his torso reluctantly bears several large scars, twisting ugly across his stomach, and he returns each night to another nameless place with more bruises that he does not recall making, more rips and tears into his skin that he didn’t account for. 

Sherlock is distracted and far, far away from himself. _It shows_. It shows in everything he does and everything he says and even he - _(reaching and reaching but finding only shadow, the ghost of a memory, a British Army Browning in a trouser pocket)_  - begins to doubt his own strength. 

Doubt. So contagious and it races through his bloodstream, attacking his cells and eating away like a ravenous _dirty_ disease. As much as he washes, he never comes clean.

It’s _almost_ enough to make him go back. But -

John will always believe in him, that is enough.

Enough, for now.

  



End file.
